The God of English

Her name was Mrs. Wagner and I hope her name is still Mrs. Wager. I can not remember the last time we spoke and I would not be able to tell you anything about where the trajectory of life has placed her, but Mrs. Wagner was my 7th grade english teacher and she was the reason I wrote my first poem. Revisiting grade school memories is like trying to remember old stories from Greek mythology, distant and vague but powerful in the way that ancient wars still leave their mark on us. Grade school felt like Greek mythology where the teachers were the gods and we were their subjects. We were subjected to the will of Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon and Athena but Mrs. Wagner was my Athena. She was a god of wisdom and she was the queen of her classroom. During the fall we did a study on poetry. We learned all the basics about Sonnets, Limericks, and the wild west of free verse. After we finished learning, Mrs. Wagner said our assignment was to go home and  write a poem of our own. 

I remember sitting in the guest bedroom of our house in New Orleans, on a computer that could do far less than my iphone can do, writing a poem because I had to. Writing because the god of english told me it was her wish that I do so. The next day, we had to read our poems in front of the entire class. This was the first time I had ever written a poem and standing in front of the class, it felt like I was diving off the diving board for the first time again. I took a deep breath and began to read as if each word was a small step. But as the last word rolled off my tongue and landed in the room, there was silence. The silence felt like a prayer, as if we had stepped inside a moment that was bigger than the time it consumed. I was unsure if the room was filled with silent prayers of joy or disdain but Mrs. Wagner broke the silence to say she was proud of what I had done.

That day began a journey for me that has not stopped. I took the first step on this journey of writing because I had to but I have taken many more steps because I wanted to. Over the years I have fallen in love with telling stories that people can relate to but up until now, I’ve kept these stories largely to myself. Several months ago I decided I wanted to see what would happen if I invited others to join in this adventure with me, taking steps together as we experience the journey of life. So I hope you find the pieces that I write are worth more than the time it takes to read them. I hope that after reading my work, if you were the god of english and I read a poem in your classroom, you would be proud too.